He spreads crude theses, fights against vaccinations – and against the glyphosate herbicide, the agricultural industry and lobbying: RFK Jr., John F. Kennedy’s nephew, is supposed to head the highest health authorities in the USA under Donald Trump
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a staunch opponent of vaccinations
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man Donald Trump nominated to lead key U.S. health agencies, rose to national prominence as one of the country’s most persistent and influential vaccine refusers. Last August, the 70-year-old Kennedy abandoned his own candidacy for president and recommended Trump’s election. He is the son of former Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
What RFK Jr. spreads about autism, HIV and transgender
Trained as an environmental lawyer, RFK Jr. rose to fame by spreading conspiracy theories and questioning scientific research, often portraying himself as someone who understood disease and epidemiology better than scientists. He is accused of spreading unsubstantiated claims such as that vaccines are linked to autism in children; He has spread the word that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and has linked certain antidepressants to an increase in school shootings, as well as the use of a certain herbicide to an increase in young people coming out as transgender.
A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was among the top two funders of anti-vaccination ads on Facebook. In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named him one of the twelve most authoritative spreaders of online misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines called. Most notably, Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccination group he led until he ran for president, flooded American Samoa with misinformation about vaccines before a 2019 outbreak there devastating measles outbreak came.
Vaccination rates in the USA have fallen
The US Senate must approve the filling of the position at the top of the US health authority. If this happens, vaccines will be “the first issue on the table,” according to experts.
Michael Osterholmdirector of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that even if public policy remained unchanged, if authorities with the authority of a federal agency opposed vaccines, it would reduce the willingness of people who actually want them would get vaccinated, “and that is just as bad as if there were no vaccine at all.”
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Just last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) published a reportwhich showed that less than a sixth of U.S. healthcare workers had received a current Covid-19 vaccine and less than half had received a flu shot in the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season.
Corona, the little-noticed election campaign topic
Covid-19 was never seen as a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, but it certainly resonated in the first post-pandemic presidential election, which is now reflected in the anti-vaccination movement’s greatest political success to date.
The number of childhood vaccinations has also declined since the pandemic. In the US, among children born in 2020/2021, the proportion of children under two who have received all vaccinations has fallen, while the proportion of children who have not received any vaccination has increased. The decline was greatest among children who had received both flu vaccinations (-7.8 percent). Researchers blame this primarily on vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.
“We forget what this country looked like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, whooping cough and measles,” Osterholm said. “We will see the return of diseases that we have had under control for decades.”
RFK Jr. criticizes the agriculture industry
RFK Jr. has also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, even though fluoride levels are mandated by state and local authorities. He has spoken out against processed foods and the use of herbicides such as Roundup (containing the controversial active ingredient glyphosate), and has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feedlots that dominate the industry.
He wants to close the “revolving door” of employees who have worked for pharmaceutical companies in the past or who leave the public sector to work for this industry. He also wants to lay off 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health who are responsible for vaccine research and replace them with 600 new employees.
